The Sweeper: Not So SuperLiga!

I mentioned yesterday I’d be attending the final of the SuperLiga, which is best explained as a contrived North American Europa League. A capacity crowd at Toyota Park (it would be generous to say it was actually “sold-out”), the $1m prize and two of the best teams in North America right now, the Chicago Fire and Tigres UANL, gave us all the ingredients for a pulsating final, tied 1-1 at the end of 90 minutes

Unfortunately, the contrived nature of the tournament was revealed when to the surprise of most, the final went straight to penalties after the ninety minutes were up. A pulsating contest was thus cut-off and decided by the random chance of a shootout. If you’re going to win $1m, at least play an extra thirty minutes to earn it. The only explanation for this rule is to prevent interference in the television schedule, an inexcusable situation if we’re to take this tournament seriously going forward.

In any case, you may guess from the increasingly bitter tone that my Chicago Fire lost the shootout, so lets move onto other news, shall we. . .

England

Newcastle may finally be freed from Mike Ashley’s inept clutches, as Barry Moat’s consortium’s chances of a takeover seem to be pretty good. Moat is a friend of Alan Shearer, and his consortium also apparently has considerable backing from a US-based investor — though there’s no word on who. They sure need something to happen: as Ian Murtagh notes, “Newcastle remain the only club in the Football League without a manager or even one new addition to their squad.”

And there’s continued turmoil at Portsmouth, as once again we see that a “fairytale” takeover is nothing of the sort — Sulaiman al-Fahim’s 10 weeks in charge since he took over the club for no purchase price (instead taking on the club’s substantial debts) leading to nothing but player sales to pay back loans.

Meanwhile, another American takeover of a Premier League team is mooted — Clark Hunt (son of Lamar, a big backer of MLS before his death) is being linked with West Ham. It could be another good penny-pinching move by Hunt, with West Ham available at a bargain price given they are close to liquidation.

Carlsberg’s long tenure as Liverpool’s shirt sponsor looks set to end after seventeen years. Stefan Syzmanski made the point that “If I were a brand, I wouldn’t want to be associated with a football team for so long, as you end up alienating supporters of rival teams. And advertisers don’t want their products to be permanently associated with just one team.”

Raphael Honigstein has an excellent preview of the Bundesliga season, which starts this Friday. Honigstein rightly points out that it is Europe’s “best-supporter”, “highest scoring”, and perhaps most importantly, “most deliciously random league”.

Plans to install real grass at Toronto’s BMO Field to replace the much-criticised FieldTurf may be shelved until 2011, in part due to a city workers’ strike. Of course, the club is spending $250,000 to install temporary grass for Real Madrid’s visit this week — no wonder they are charging $15 just to watch Madrid practice.

Well, that’s that for the New York Red Bulls, who blew their only chance to stop their runaway ride to being one of the worst — and probably the worst — teams in MLS history by losing to W-Connection and crashing out of the CONCACAF Champions League. See ya, Osorio.

Sorry about the loss, TD…that’s completely ridiculous! Who goes right to pens without playing any extra time? I can’t imagine what the reaction was like when people realized what was going on.

Sorry you couldn’t make it out to Portland for the Fire trip this year…I was looking around for you and then realized that posting continued as normal on here so I figured you didn’t make it. Hopefully I can make it out to Chi-Town for a game one of these days (before 2011, when I will be duty bound to try and kill you for wearing other colors…just kidding…). Would love to finally buy you that beer as thanks for the great site.

Anyways, good luck for the second half of the Fire’s season.

Forza Fire!
C’mon you Timbers!

August 6, 2009 at 12:13 pmKT

FWIW, they DID play extra time when Pachuca beat LA in penalties in the first SuperLiga and last year when New England beat Houston.

But this year, the regs said: “In the event of a draw following regulation time, the match will be decided by
kicks from the penalty mark according to FIFA regulations,” and it was that way for the semis as well as the final.

Cap Ap — I was very sorry to miss the Seattle trip, and the Allied Invasion. Sounds like S8 and the TA had a wild time. Be great if you can make it out here, I have a couch with your name on it (apologies for the cat smell, in advance). I’m also hoping to be out in the Northwest later this year for MLS Cup…..

The penalty kicks thing was also weird because there wasn’t (as far as I could hear above the din of Section 8) even an announcement of what was happening, as if this was a usual state of affairs. KT — I think you’re right that it was probably a TV decision. I noticed TeleFuture had another live match right after; perhaps this scheduling is what determined the decision in the first place: if so, a pretty poor way to promote SuperLiga as a proper tournament.

August 6, 2009 at 2:08 pmBahns

A comical finish (and I’m not referring to Justin Mapp’s effort from the spot, which was more along the lines of horrific) to a tournament that is unsure of whether it can even take itself seriously… which leaves a fan hard pressed to give it a small amount of respect that perhaps the tournament does not really deserve.